Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems

I really enjoyed this book, It could use more examples, but all in all the problems in the chapter are more than enough! Definitely pick up a solution manual and you should be able to master diff eqs!!!!!!!!!!!

The book is alright. Quite a few of the solutions don't match up with the answers, which is frustrating. Occasionally a leap of an assumption will be taken instead of explained, which has left me to ponder for a while as to why the assumption is valid. Explanations would be nice in cases like this, but I suppose all math books make jumps (some bigger than others). This is the only differential equations book I've used in depth, but might buy it again instead of searching for another.

This book does a very poor job of explaining methodology for solving problems. The examples are often too simple to be helpful, but often make use of "magic" solving techniques that are not explained anywhere in the surrounding text. This book is extremely frustrating to use if you plan to use it for primary learning, such as in a case where your professor is impossible to understand (thank God that this is the last math course which I must take at Michigan State University), or anything else along those lines. In summary, this is not a good book; avoid it if at all possible.

I am a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and this book was used for the intermediate level ODE course, Math 319. Although this book was tedious to read, after reading a section and working through the problems I felt I had a very good grasp of the material.

After the class finished I also went back and read the two final chapters on PDE's and boundary value problems and found them as a good starting place for the material.

Save your money and buy Ordinary Differential Equations by Tennenbaum and Pollard, or use Paul's online math notes. I PROMISE you will not learn ANYTHING from this book. The exposition is confusing at best, and many important concepts are left as exercises. If you must use this book for a class, purchase an earlier edition for a cheaper price. If you are trying to learn differntial equations solely from this text, it will be rough sailing.

This text is definitely for advanced math students. On the exciting scale, this text would rank with most others. The text is written fairly competently and is easy to follow given a introductory background in math (Calc I & II). I've found much of the material interesting (for it being math) and have actually enjoyed doing the reading assignment for my class (Introduction to Differential Equations).

It's required for my class. The examples and text aren't very helpful, but the problems are required. Minimal explanation and maximum exploitation. At least it's cheaper than the university edition.

This book was mandatory for a differential equations course I took last semester. As other reviewers have said, it does a very, very poor job of teaching differential equations solving, and is mostly useful as a set of practice exercises with solutions. I would avoid this book if at all possible - there are far better alternatives available.

Well written, plenty of examples and exercise questions. Sometimes hard to understand the explanations if reading the book alone but it has all the essential information in an orderly and concise manner.

The book is flat out overcomplicated, this stuff could have been explained alot easier, just reading it right now i get a headache, proffr's and mathematicians who write books always have to make things so much harder then they need to be...horrible book thumbs way down.

Could I simply see one problem followed through from start to finish? I understand that from the perspective of someone who is very well versed in the subject this textbook might be helpful. For the rest just look up what you need to know on Khan Academy or Youtube.

This book is relatively clear and easy to follow. The examples outlined in the notes of each section don't always explicitly explain the harder exercises. However, the basic concepts are clearly delineated.

Like everyone else is saying, this book sucks. The only good parts I see are how *some* sections are kinda clear, and also the pretty organized layout. There are some decent examples, but that's really not saying much. This book overall is very confusing and poorly worded. If you don't believe me, then just read the other reviewers. The book spends approximately 3 pages rambling on about slope fields, and that should've only taken 1/2 a page at most. The authors of this book come up with the most convoluted explanations ever!

More importantly, the book often skips steps when doing examples. It's very likely the authors just slapped together most of the examples through a computer, as they often contain HUGE leaps of logic, and skip many crucial steps. In addition, some problems in the book are just awful, and by awful, I mean ridiculously stupid. Some problems will probably take forever to be done by a human, as they involve ridiculously time-consuming integrals, which is completely irrelevent to the study of differential equations. Other stupid problems include how the author expects students to possess a complete understanding of chemistry / physics to solve the problem - An example could be a differential equation involving battery charge. The authors expected me to know how to rewrite the equation if they rewire the resistors and then tinker the voltage - the same goes for a chemical reaction problem - they just expected me to know physical chemistry and write a diff eqn to model it. Lastly, some answers in the back are wrong, which is pitiful considering that the greedy publisher releases this book at least once every 2 years or so.

The book is poorly worded, does a bad job explaining, lacks coherent examples, contains errors (STILL!), and contains very annoying problems that are way beyond the explanations / examples

The product was "shipped" the next day; however I did not receive it until after the estimated 3 weeks. This is terrible. I was about to file a claim when it arrived. Unless you are buying your books a month in advance... do not buy it from this retailer.

To be honest, Calculus is NOT my favorite part of math; but I've always managed to understand it fairly well. However, I could not follow what was going on in this book. The only reason I passed my class was because of the notes I took in class and help I found online. Since choosing Mathematics as my major, this is the first math book I am selling!

The kindle version works well. I only needed the the book for hw problems and don't read the textbook. The kindle allows to make bookmarks to keep track of certain pages that I need to reference which make going back and forth between pages easier.